Social EpidemiologyMedicine and Medical Science

MD, PhD Naoki Kondo,

We study social determinants of health (SDH/SDoH) and how to achieve health equity.
SDH at the levels of society and community include income inequality, economic crises,
and social capital; and those at individual level include income, educational attainment,
occupation, and interpersonal relationships. We have also conducted intervention studies
aiming to achieve health equity in the community.

Lab Website

Research and Education

This lab has involved with the following studies.

  1. Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study: the longitudinal study on social determinants of older adults’ health involving over two hundred thousand people living in 60 municipalities in Japan and two regions in other Asian countries. We are conducting joint research with the World Health Organization and the World Bank to promote healthy ageing.
  2. Social prescribing: Building the close partnerships between medical care and community welfare services and local communities, never to bring patients back to the place which made them sick.
  3. Collaborative studies with business sector and governments: Building social services to reduce health inequality, applying for the latest behavior scientific theories and evidence.
  4. Causal inferences in social epidemiology: Developing statistical methods accurately evaluating the impacts of changing social systems on the health of individuals with diverse social backgrounds.
  5. Planetary health sciences: Collaborative study with multiple disciplines: aiming to achieve a better future harmonizing between the planet, living nature, and human.

Our monograph on healthy ageing, published with WHO (download: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/279010)

Health in Japan: Social Epidemiology of Japan since the 1964 Tokyo Olympics:

Recent Publications

  1. Haseda M, Takagi D, Stickley A, Kondo K, Kondo N*. Effectiveness of a community organizing intervention on mortality and its equity among older residents in Japan: A JAGES quasi-experimental study. Health Place. 2022;74:102764.
  2. Inoue K, Athey S, Tsugawa Y. Machine-learning-based high-benefit approach versus conventional high-risk approach in blood pressure management. I Int J Epidemiol. 2023;52:1243-1256.
  3. Nishio M, Haseda M, Inoue K, Saito M, Kondo N. Measuring functional ability in Healthy Ageing: testing its validity using Japanese nationwide longitudinal data. Age Ageing. 2024;53:afad224.
  4. Sato K, Noguchi H, Inoue K, Kawachi I, Kondo N. Retirement and cardiovascular disease: a longitudinal study in 35 countries. Int J Epidemiol. 2023;52:1047-1059.
  5. Ishimura N, Inoue K, Maruyama S, Nakamura S, Kondo N. Income Level and Impaired Kidney Function Among Working Adults in Japan. JAMA Health Forum. 2024;5:e235445.

Social Epidemiology

Professor:Naoki Kondo
Associate Professor: Kosuke Inoue (the Hakubi Project)
Junior Associate Professor: Maho Haseda
Assistant Professor:Keiko Ueno, Akira Kyan, Yukiko Honda

Email:contact@socepi.med.kyoto-u.ac.jp
URL:https://socepi.med.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/

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